Outdoors

A sweet time of year Buzz about honey a little louder in September BY BRYNN MANDEL | REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

Bees swarm outside their hive at Susan Gray and Kate Moran's home in Terryville. Gray and Moran recently got into beekeeping, as they wanted pollinators for their gardens. Christopher Massa / Republican-American

Much ado has been made of the plight of the pollinators. Those concerned about plummeting bee populations have bemoaned the decline through channels as varied as scientific symposia to a recent local art exhibition celebrating the creatures.

But what of the bumbling, would-be novice beekeeper?

Activity among the amateur beekeepers in many corners of the state is buzzing. More than 950 keepers mind more than 5,440 colonies registered with the state — nearly double the number of a dozen years ago. Just like dog owners, each person owning one or more hives of honey bees must register those bees annually with the state, per law. Few keepers operate larger apiaries like Hannan Honey in Southbury or Woodbury's North Forty Apiaries. Rather, many of the burgeoning crop of keepers are like Susan Gray of Terryville — backyard hobbyists with an interest in nature for whom honey is a sweet bonus.

At Gray's home, you hear the buzz before you see the creatures. The soft drone emanates from a patch of delicate white buckwheat flowers that Gray and her partner, Kate Moran, planted for the bees. Of course, the insects flap their wings toward other areas of the couple's roughly 60-by-60-foot garden, sampling nectar from squash blossoms and goldenrod perennials along the way.

Gray doesn't like the word "keeper" as it pertains to her relationship with the bees that have called her backyard home since early May. The bees are far too advanced, far too amazing to relegate to being "kept." After all, Gray insists she neither lets them out of the bee box in her backyard, as one person asked her, nor can control them, "kinda like teenagers." She simply lets nature take its course, with a few small chores to help things along. For example, she periodically dusts sugar on parts of the hive's boxes to coat the creatures and promote self-grooming to thwart pesky mites. But beyond such simple tasks, you could say the pair have let nature take over.

So awed by the bees' activity are Gray and Moran, that they sometimes lounge in lawn chairs a few feet from the periwinkle-painted hive and watch the action. Sometimes they marvel through binoculars at the flitting about, like one day when a yellow jacket tried to enter the honeycombed labyrinth only to be "kicked out like in a bar fight" by the guard bees at the hive's mouth, said Gray.

"Everybody has a job. Everyone knows what to do. It's such a great society," she said of the bees, shrugging shoulders reddened and dappled by countless hours beneath the sun.

Gray first considered creating a backyard bee colony a few years ago, contemplating how it might complement her organic garden. This past winter, she ordered the hive accouterments online and hammered together the parts. She donned a bee suit for the first time in spring, after driving from Southbury to pick up a shoebox-sized container holding 9,000 buzzing bees. She rode from Southbury to Terryville with the mesh-encased swarm in her lap. Back home, she followed detailed instructions to transfer the worker bees and their queen to the home she constructed.

"I have seen a big difference" in the garden this year, said Gray. "We're trying to create this little microcosm habitat here for the birds and the bees and everything."

"All summer we eat fresh from the garden, and in winter I have all the potatoes and onions I'll need," said Gray.

Occasionally, she has intervened on Mother Nature's behalf. After the first queen bee flew the coop, Gray and Moran "requeened" the colony. But it appears the bees had their own designs in mind. Gray noticed the bees had started delivering something called royal jelly — the stuff only a queen consumes — to developing egg cells. The bees, it seems, were trying to create and anoint their own, new queen.

Already friends and family have called "dibs" on Gray's first batch of wildflower honey. But as the one suffering errant stings and coexisting daily with the insects, she thinks she will savor the first sweet spoonful when it comes. Right now, however, the honey in the bowels of the bee box out back is spoken for. It is for the bees. Gray wants them to survive the winter, which means they need what honey they've already produced to make it through the season.

Beyond backyard gardens, bees play an integral part in agriculture and the food industry. Americans consume about 1.3 pounds of honey per person each year, according to the National Honey Board, which promotes September as National Honey Month. And its popularity has only been on the uptick in recent years, not only in cooking but for uses as varied as beauty regimens to homeopathic seasonal allergy relief. Bees pollinating habits benefit more than 100 crops, from avocados to apples, worth billions. While some pollination occurs naturally by "wild" insects, many agricultural industries rely on services from so-called commercial honey bee colonies to maintain their crops. According to some estimates, one in three bites of food consumed depends on honey bees' pollination.

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Honey Black Pepper Flatbread

Makes 24 servings

10 cups (2 lbs., 3 oz.) flour, plus as needed

2 Tablespoons baking powder

1 Tablespoon kosher or sea salt, plus as needed

2 cups hot water

1 cup (12 oz.) honey, divided

1 cup cold water, plus as needed

1- cups vegetable oil, chilled

Freshly ground black pepper, as needed (about 1 Tablespoon)

Mix flour, baking powder and salt; reserve. Combine hot water and 1/2 cup honey; mix into dry ingredients. Combine cold water and oil; mix into dough. Add a little additional water if the dough is too dry or a little additional flour if the dough is too sticky. Knead 2 or 3 minutes, adding more flour as necessary to handle. Dough will be soft. Divide dough into 48 portions, about 1-1/2 ounces each; shape into balls. Let rest 5 minutes. Roll each ball into a rough circle about -inch thick, dusting with flour, as necessary.

Cook on an oiled flat top grill or in a sauté pan filmed lightly with canola oil (re-oil as necessary just to keep from sticking), over medium heat, turning a couple of times until lightly browned in spots - about 3 minutes total. Warm remaining 1/2 cup honey. Brush top of each round with a scant teaspoon of honey; then lightly spring with a large pinch of both black pepper and salt. To serve, set two rounds one atop another to form a "sandwich."

— National Honey Board

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